Australian Public Service bosses have the legal right to refuse demands from staff for paid "discretionary" time off work, the industrial tribunal has ruled.
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The Fair Work Commission made the ruling in the case of a federal public servant's legal bid to force his bosses to give him months of "discretionary" leave.
FWA found that Damon Hobbs' managers at the Australian Financial Security Authority had no obligation to grant the bureaucrat's demands for months of paid leave under the authority's workplace agreement.
Mr Hobbs blamed his bosses at AFSA's Hobart office for his long-term absence from work in 2013 and 2014, which began when he took several weeks off to recover from the stress of missing out on a promotion.
However, by the time the case came to the tribunal, in November 2014, Mr Hobbs had been away from his job for 447 days, nearly all of it classed as unpaid sick leave.
In his action at Fair Work Australia, the veteran of nearly 10 years at the authority claimed AFSA had failed in its duty to organise a "return to work" plan for him and was therefore obliged to pay for the bulk of his time away from work under its discretionary leave provisions.
"If paid leave could not be granted in my circumstances, it is difficult to imagine when it could be paid at all," Mr Hobbs said in his submission to the FWC.
But Fair Work Commissioner Tim Lee, who heard the case, found that the AFSA mangers had made "repeated and reasonable" efforts to get Mr Hobbs back to his desk.
"There has been a series of protracted and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to have the [Mr Hobbs] return to work," Commissioner Lee wrote in his judgment.
"During this time, various medical reports from a number of practitioners and fitness for duty reports were sought, meetings arranged and cancelled, and so on."
But in the end, the commission decided, the case turned on the meaning of "discretionary leave" and whether Mr Hobbs had the legal right to force the entitlement from his bosses.
"The word discretionary has an ordinary meaning," Commissioner Lee wrote.
"It means subject to or left to someone's discretion.
"The Discretionary Miscellaneous Leave guideline provides guidance about factors to consider when exercising the discretion.
"It is clear that the ordinary meaning of the words in the Agreement is that discretionary leave is to be granted at the discretion of the decision maker."
